A Solstice Summer Ritual at Gors Fawr Stone Circle

Gors Fawr

We met at Gors Fawr stone circle in time on midsummer’s day. The views that confronted us were magnificent. The summer solstice, June 21st this year, was a clear, hot, bright day – the hottest in 40 years – and being there was powerfully invigorating. 

 We were in a bleak, but strikingly beautiful place – a moorland full of gorse and reeds and sheep, lying quite flat for a mile or more until the hills suddenly loom up as a backdrop. We’d come to hold a ritual at the very place in Pembrokeshire where Neolithic worshipers also gathered, to watch the sunrise on the solstice. 

We were at Gors Fawr Stone Circle.

Bedd Arther

Gors Fawrs dates from the Neolithic. It is part of a surprisingly large and active sacred landscape at the foot of the Preseli Hills called the Glandy Cross. This is an area rich in Neolithic burial chambers, Bronze age settlements, barrows, standing stones and a chambered tomb. There were once three stone circles, but one is lost. The smaller of the remaining two, Bedd Arthur (Arthur’s Bed), is a small, boat-shaped horseshoe of stones high in the hills, while at the foot of the hills on the flat plateau of moorland is the larger circle – Gors Fawr, whose name translates as 'great wasteland'. 

The inner bluestones against the
Stonehenge Trilithons

The circle has a very special atmosphere. It consists of 16 small remaining stones about 22 metres in diameter. They are small stones, unprepossessing on the north side of the circle, but getting bigger towards the south until they’re about a metre in height. Eight of the stones are composed of local glacial erratic boulders, but, very excitingly, the other eight stones in this circle are bluestones, the same stone as the smaller stone arc inside that far more famous circle…Stonehenge. 

We were here to hold a ritual on the summer solstice, which is called Alban Hefin by Druids and Litha by Wiccans. The solstice is the peak of the power and radiance of the sun. It’s union with the earth at its zenith. Over the last week, the sun had shone above us, strongly and brightly.

It had been so hot, records were being broken. In fact, the 21st became, the hottest day since 1976. I recall that summer very well, as I was pregnant with my first child, so ‘hot’ was what I remained most of the time.

Carn Meini, the Dragon's Back

As we prepared the circle, and met up with the people who had been here for the sun’s rising in the very early morning, I looked up to the hills above us. I could see a  short area of jagged rocks running along the ridgeway of the Preseli's. This is the Dragon’s Back –  the peak of Carn Meini, a natural outcrop of Blue Spotted Dolerite – the place where the Stonehenge bluestones originated.

Carn Meini has a very strong radiant quality. On some level it feels like the yang counterpart to the Yin Gors Fawr. It’s not surprising the bluestone found there was used and loved so much in the Neolithic. As well as being used for the building of an early stage at Stonehenge, ‘crystal-sized’ pieces have been found in Neolithic burial chambers around the Salisbury Plain area, as if people kept these beautiful stones close as talismans, perhaps for healing. I constantly find it amazing that bluestones found their way from a very powerful and ancient site in Pembrokeshire to another very ancient and powerful site a couple of hundred or so miles away. How they were moved is still debated, but around Pembrokeshire, the story goes that in ancient times, the ceremonial route of the bluestones from Carn Meini to Stonehenge followed the streams down the hill and past Gors Fawr. 

The two Outliers

There are two outlying stones to the north-east of the Gors Fawr circle. These align to the sunrise on the summer solstice. As you walk towards them from the stone circle, the first you meet is about five feet high, much larger than the stones in the circle, and this makes one think it must have been of importance. The larger of these, a few metres on, is around six feet in height, and is known as "The Dreaming Stone". Some accounts suggest that they were originally part of an avenue leading off from the circle. The dreaming stone has been shown to be strongly magnetic, especially where one’s head would rest if one sat on the little seat. And the seat itself does not look inviting – one imagines one would slide off, but once there, it’s wonderfully comfy, and I have sat there for twenty minutes and more.

We gathered outside the circle. Some of us had been there all night, to wait until the dawn came up on the solstice day, while other of us had arrived for this ceremony.

As everyone walked towards it, the Spirit of the Stones came towards us, and challenged us…what was our purpose here? This is how our Herald replied… “Spirit of  this place! We come in peace at this time of the summer solstice, to honour the spirit of these stones and to honour the spirits of our ancestors. We come to work in peace and love.” 

The Spirit of the Stones replied. “Then know this –  as you step beyond the boundary of this circle, you will enter the magic of Gors Fawr, where time itself has no meaning and experience is unlimited, for this realm is full of spirit and is interconnected in every direction. These stones wash a blessing over each being who works within it. So  enter this place in peace, and you shall leave renewed and refreshed.”

Once we’d set up our ritual circle, and passed an oaken branch around to each talk about how we felt about this time of the year, we called upon the Lady of the Land, who represented the landscape itself. She spoke  thus; 

“All ancient circles like this one have a fay presence which is a lovely summer bonus, but do not forget how careful you need to be when dealing with faeries; they need to be given due respect or they can play tricks. Here in my basket I have the blossoms of the Elder Tree. Celtic lore indicates that if you stand near an elder tree at Midsummer's Eve the land of the fairies will be revealed to your searching eyes. The blossom of the elder protects from fay trickery yet helps those who use it wisely to come closer to the world of Celtic faerie lands. It can also induce vivid dreams, particularly of the Faerie realms; why not take your spray to the dreaming stone and see what happens. “

The Lady of the Land then walked around the circle of people, handing out the sprays. Everyone had brought something to entertain us with, pipes to play, poems to read, and stories they wanted to tell. By the time we took our circle of ritual and celebration down, we were all starving and laid out our picnics in the circle to share. 

The sun stayed hot, but luckily the breeze coming from the coast kept us cool. Even so, after eating, some of us lay in the circle and closed our eyes. But we had to take care not to fall to sleep, as it is said that if you fall asleep inside a stone circle, you will wake to find yourself in Fairyland, and none of us wanted to drive home still enchanted by the fay…

If you live in West Wales, you can find Gors Fawr Stone Circle just outside the village of Mynachlog-ddu, Pembrokeshire,  OS Map Ref SN135294
OS Maps - Landranger 145 (Cardigan & Mynydd Preseli), Explorer OL35 (North Pembrokeshire)